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Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

arxiv.org

31–40 of 331 posts

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#31
post #23
post #7

My main concern: Where are the original authors and why are they not helping people synthesize the replications?

According to Wikipedia: > On 3 August 2023, the Korean LK-99 Verification Committee requested a high-quality sample from the original research team. However, the team responded that they would only provide the sample once the review process of their paper, potentially submitted to APL Materials, is completed. This process is expected to take several weeks or months.

These sort of answers do not inspire confidence. That looks like a play for time, why would they connect those two, it's clear they have priority locked in if the sample works out, the peer review of their paper is secondary to the questions of whether or not it is the real deal or not.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#32
post #23
post #7

My main concern: Where are the original authors and why are they not helping people synthesize the replications?

According to Wikipedia: > On 3 August 2023, the Korean LK-99 Verification Committee requested a high-quality sample from the original research team. However, the team responded that they would only provide the sample once the review process of their paper, potentially submitted to APL Materials, is completed. This process is expected to take several weeks or months.

I am not in material science, but how does sharing a sample of the material not part of the paper review? Anyone can write a paper about things they did to make a material X, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If I am a top tier material science journal, I would not want to publish a phony SC because I waited to verify their sample.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#33
What happened to the original LK-99 samples that (allegedly) displayed SC properties?

Were they just thrown in the dustbin, or what?

I haven't seen that question answered or even asked anywhere, but I'm just a layman so maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#34
post #7

My main concern: Where are the original authors and why are they not helping people synthesize the replications?

Let's hope the growing mountain of evidence against original author claims causes them to move quicker with providing samples to bonafide labs and disclosing the full details of their manufacturing process.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#35
post #7

My main concern: Where are the original authors and why are they not helping people synthesize the replications?

That's a good question and there is a lot of speculation about that but ultimately we just do not know. There is a whole tree that you can set up to track their reasons, the big branch at the beginning is labeled 'it doesn't work' (which obviously is a bit short on the confirming side, it may still have a 'fraud' and a 'true believers' branch but that's academic) and then from the other branch you get branches which…

They weren't ready to publish and then got forced into the lime light by a member of their team going rogue. We should give them some benefit of the doubt due to the circumstances, even if LK-99 turns out not to be a SC, they didn't choose to publish.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#36
post #8

Has anyone even seen a ferromagnet stand up like that in a magnetic field?

Yes. https://nitter.net/VanGennepD/status/1688052003216261120 And this new paper finally rigorously explains away all the half-levitation videos. They can no longer be considered any evidence of SC at all.

Not all the replication videos show the sample in the middle, see the Varda sample videos. Constructing something that simulates something else is proof of very little, other than there are other possible explanations. The existence of alternative explanations isn’t a proof the proposed explanation isn’t true.

This paper doesn’t explain away anything yet - they’re conjecturing based on their experience with their sample. Their conjectures are no more credible than the opposing supporting conjectures.

IANAP and I don’t have a horse in the race, and while I’m excited to see if this is true, I don’t believe anything other than there’s a long road of research ahead and nothing will be proven with hottake nitter videos or hottake preprints.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#37
post #4

After reading the r/physics thread on LK-99 [1] I've cooled significantly on the matter. Basically: people who work in SC think the initial science seems very sloppy and the replication attempts don't come close to what you need to demonstrate a RT SC [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/15i3h9d/lk99_megat...

I have been very cautious on any analysis on LK99 - especially my own.

I have mentioned to many people that any potential application of this stuff comes with an 'if it is real'. That IF is doing a lot of heavy lifting and it has to be emphasized.

I want this to be a thing, but it doesn't matter how much you want something to be true, it actually HAS to be true.

A beautiful elegant idea can be crushed by a single ugly dirty truth.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were saying the initial papers were trash in the first day of their release over a week ago, so that's ancient history and immaterial now. Same with the "replications," they're obviously insufficient when they're generating pieces the size of a pin head that can't be attached to probes. All of us are in a holding pattern waiting for some big lab like Argonne to confirm or deny its SC status.

How would you *deny* the SC status? Replications keep failing until everyone is pretty sure it's not it. Proving the absence of something is rare to see.

> How would you deny the SC status?

Maybe we should adopt the stance that it’s not a SC by default and have the people asserting that it is prove that it’s a SC.

Re: Ferromagnetic half levitation of LK-99-like synthetic samples

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. https://nitter.net/VanGennepD/status/1688052003216261120 And this new paper finally rigorously explains away all the half-levitation videos. They can no longer be considered any evidence of SC at all.

Not all the replication videos show the sample in the middle, see the Varda sample videos. Constructing something that simulates something else is proof of very little, other than there are other possible explanations. The existence of alternative explanations isn’t a proof the proposed explanation isn’t true. This paper doesn’t explain away anything yet - they’re conjecturing based on their experience with their sam…

> Not all the replication videos show the sample in the middle, see the Varda sample videos

Andrew McCalip himself says this explains everything he's seen.

https://nitter.net/andrewmccalip/status/1688741684316975104#...

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